Gold, silver, pgms, mining and geopolitical comment and news

The New York gold price closed Tuesday at $1,121.40 up from $1,108.30 up $13.10. In Asia on Wednesday, it held over $1,120 ahead of London’s opening and then the LBMA set it at $1,116.50 up from $1,114.70 with the dollar index down at 99.00 from 99.36 on Tuesday. The euro was up at $1.0874 from $1.0831 against the dollar. The gold price in the euro was set at €1,026.76 down from €1,029.18. Ahead of New York’s opening, the gold price was trading at $1,117.80 and in the euro at €1,027.86.

The silver price in New York closed at $14.50 up 26 cents at Tuesday’s close. Ahead of New York’s opening, the silver price stood at $14.40.

Price Drivers

Tuesday saw purchases of 5.057 tonnes of gold into the SPDR gold ETF and 3.31 tonnes into the Gold Trust. The holdings of the SPDR gold ETF are now at 669.229 tonnes and at 165.13 tonnes in the Gold Trust. This was a surge of physical demand showing a broader section of the investor community is now turning to gold. We expect this to continue.

Overhead resistance is out of the way until the gold price moves much higher and then it is not a significant resistance. There was little dealers and speculators could do, except to bow to the upward pressure. Closing short positions will gain momentum now. Bear in mind this is not physical buying, simply closing financial transactions related to the gold price.

We expect nothing dramatic from the Fed today except cautionary warnings on the state of global growth and an awareness of the damage dollar strength could do. This will be positive for gold!

We find it significant that Apple described global market conditions as ‘never before seen’. We ignore the demand for Apple i-phones and factor in the commentary on the state of the global economy, which they see as dramatically slowing. Against a background of currencies weakening in the ‘race to the bottom’, the global debt mountain will see a diminishing global cash flow with which to service such debt. This will place extreme pressure on the economic structures around the world. It’s a case of where the next fracture is going to come from?

With Asia having drawn off gold supply so extensively the news that gold discoveries have collapsed confirmed the future supply squeeze in the years to come. As it is, this year we expect gold supplies from mining to peak. We do see demand for gold being much higher than the bulk of forecasters think particularly from China. This could be the beginning of gold’s return to record price levels! – Silver is running full pelt now.